How do you define “wealthy”?
June 19, 2008
A comment on my post asking for guest posters got me thinking, someone called “Rich” said to get someone who is actually wealthy.
So, how do you actually define “wealthy”? Most people would probably say having a lot money means you are rich or wealthy. I made more money when I was working a 9-5 job together with my internet income, but I was always stressed and hated my job. I often felt sick in the stomach on Sunday nights when I thought of another five days of work.
I used to mark down the days on my calendar until my next vacation. I don’t earn so much now, but I feel so free everyday. I no longer dread Mondays or any other day. I have almost been able to eliminate everything in my life that I didn’t like doing. I can live everyday just as though I am on vacation.
I have some properties, earn passive income from the internet and the work I am doing now on my internet websites, does not feel like work at all. “Do something you enjoy and you will never have to work a day in your life”.
Material possessions for me are just extra baggage. Most people would look at someone with a big house, expensive cars and toys and say that they are wealthy. They probably don’t even think about the debt the person might be carrying on those possessions. Warren Buffet has lived in the same house his whole life and seems to live a very humble life.
So for me, wealth is the freedom to live how and wherever I like. To work as little or as much as I want without it affecting my lifestyle.
How do you define being wealthy?
Looking for guest posts
May 10, 2008
To help keep this blog moving while I am working on my site for the Beijing Olympics, I thought I would open up this blog to guest bloggers. I have written some guest posts on other blogs and have found it to be a good way to get new traffic and links to your site.
I am not going to accept any spammy posts or posts linking to spammy sites - only developed websites please.
I am open to any posts on finance, investing, making money online, domains, property and living overseas.
Always read the fine print
February 12, 2008
I am back in Bangkok now and I spent my first day locating the Canon service center. I bought a new Digital Canon SLR just before I left and I just now discovered a small problem with it.
When I was in the store in Australia, the sales guy confirmed that the warranty was in fact international. I explained to him that this was important as I was going traveling. Only now looking at the warranty card it says it is valid only for Australia and New Zealand. Either the sales person didn’t know and just made up an answer, or he straight out lied to me to make the sale.
I have emailed the store, asking for an explanation. I intentionally bought the camera in Australia as I thought I would be dealing with a more honest retailer. I could probably could have gotten a better deal in Thailand or China where I am heading next.
Perhaps I was in the wrong for not checking the warranty in the store, but since I had already checked with the salesperson I thought I was well covered. The repair fee shouldn’t be much, but I am pissed off with that sales guy.
He did the hard sell to an extend the warranty for three years. I have dealt with a lot of electronic gear over the years and have generally found stuff to break within the first year, so I don’t bother with extended warranties. The only exception is laptops. Laptops only have a life of three years, so getting a 3-year warranty with them is a good investment.
So, I only took the year warranty which now looks only valid in Australia. I am going to wait to hear what they say before actually naming them here.
New theme from Revolution
February 4, 2008
I bought and implemented a new theme from Revolution themes today. Magazine type themes for blogs have become popular recently further creating a blur between websites and blogs.
Your old content on blogs tends to get lost in the archives and using a theme like the ones from Revolution give you the ability to keep some of your better articles on display. I think this is important if someone comes across your site for the first time. You want them to see some of your best work, rather than some rant or off topic post that might be your latest item.
The top menu by default displays your wordpress pages. The menu below displays your categories. If you have a lot of different categories, the menu doesn’t display properly. Sub-categories are automatically display as pull down menus. The categories on my blog have started to get a bit messy, so it made me try to organize them a bit better.
To display the categories in the left area and down the center is as simple as choosing the category ID. There is also a nice bit of space to display videos and some advertisements. The RSS links and email subscription form are also displayed prominently.
Revolution also have a sports, magazine and technology themes. Well worth the money in my opinion.
Taking advantage of topical news
January 21, 2008
Creating a site that goes viral is not an easy task. One way is to piggy-back off a topical news story. I have seen this happen a few times recently with some success.
Some of you may have heard of Corey Delaney. He is a 16 year old Australian kid who held a party at his house that went out of control. For some reason, it became a big news story in Australia and around the world.
A web design company had a bright idea by putting up this website: Slap Corey. It is a simple, clever idea that is pretty funny (better with the sound on). The site was mentioned in several newspaper articles. While, I doubt they will make any money from it, the inbound links and traffic could be a good way to promote another site or business.
Your probably don’t want to have any advertising on the site to begin with, but once you get some good inbound links it shouldn’t be too much of a problem by putting some ringtone type advertisements on the site.
Taking time off work for the Beijing Olympics
January 12, 2008
This article in caterersearch.com says that employers should support their employees if they want to take time off for the Olympic games so they can become a volunteer in Beijing.
Caterersearch is a UK based website so the view is not surprising with the London games in 2012.
“It isn’t just the international chains,” he says. “Of course, losing a person for four weeks has an impact for a small business. But if you want to retain people, allowing them to go sends a great psychological message and you’ll benefit from them being rejuvenated and refreshed by their experiences.
“I’m optimistic. I think organisations in the hospitality sector will look favourably on staff who find volunteer options at the Olympics. And looking forward to 2012, it will be a spur for hoteliers and restaurateurs to focus on the benefits, particularly if their business is likely to be affected by the London games.”
What will 2008 bring
January 3, 2008
Most bloggers have been busy posting their goals for the new year. This is great because making a goal, writing it down and publishing it to the world is a great step to achieving your goals.
For 2008 I will be focusing on the Beijing Olympics. I have no idea as to how the site will do, but all I can do is give it a try. It is probably not one of the best ways to make money online. There are certainly faster ways to make money, like how some of the methods Cashtactics is using.
I stick pretty much to building content and user generated content sites and letting them grow over time. It can take a couple of years for sites to really start making money this way, but when a site reaches a tipping point where you no longer have to spend a lot of time maintaining it, it can then become a nice source of passive income.
Last year I became more interested in geo-domains, especially after seeing perth.com sell for $200K, brisbane.com for $100K and melbourne.com for $750K. All are Australian cities and are all currently just being parked. If anyone knows who bought them and what their plans are for the sites, I would love to know 
Imagine what a fully developed site on one of those domains would be worth.
I wanted a geo-domain of my own which I could develop into a feature rich site. I eventually bought something which I was fairly happy with, not in the above price range, but not a $10 domain either. I have since installed Joomla on the site and now playing around with the different extensions.
These two projects will be my main emphasis for 2008, along with another forum I am developing.
I don’t want to make any big predictions, but it is going to be interesting to see how much longer the web 2.0 bubble lasts.
Quick review of 2007
December 31, 2007
This year marked the first year for me earning a living online. I didn’t earn an extraordinary amount of money and I doubt I would have been able to earn enough if I lived in Australia. Perhaps that is not a bad thing as I did a lot of traveling - Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Malaysia and finally China for the last 3 months.
I also invested a bit of money back into my sites by buying some scripts, spending some money on marketing them and buying a couple of nice domains. My biggest launch for the year was Australia Forum. Stand-alone forums are notoriously difficult to start. I ran a couple of competitions (that performed pretty poorly), paid someone to help start new threads and bought a little bit of advertising. In the process I picked up some loyal posters and the site is now running pretty much by itself.
I experimented early in the year making lots of different sites - most of which went no where. I have a better idea now of what will work for me in terms of my interests and how I can make money. In the future I think I will be focusing on city/country travel/living guides. I now believe it is important to get into a vertical (rather than niches) that you have an interest in and is profitable.
I have learnt quite a bit by just focusing on my Beijing Olympic site the past three months. It is really much more effective concentrating all of your effort, especially your marketing efforts on a single website. Of course I keep maintaining all of my other sites, but whenever I seen an opportunity to promote my site, I give it a try - even if it brings in only a handful of new visitors.
So for 2008, other than covering the Beijing Olympics, my aim is to set up a bunch of city/country based travel sites, driven by useful features and user generated content.
Back in Melbourne
December 19, 2007
I arrived back in Melbourne yesterday. It is great to be back in warmer weather!
It is amazing how a change in scenery can help increase your motivation. If you don’t have the luxury of being able to change cities every few months, I think it is important to try and change your working location/environment every so often. Whether it is a friend’s place, a library or a coffee shop.
Change of government in Australia
November 25, 2007
There will be a change of government in Australia after Labor’s big election win over the weekend. It is probably one of the few times in Australia’s history where a government has lost an election while the economy is actually performing well. Perhaps it is performing too well pushing up inflation, interest rates and housing prices. Working people were unhappy with changes in the labor laws benefiting employers.
It is hard to know what impact a change in the government will have in the economy or people’s lives directly, but we will probably see more protection for the environment, emphasis on climate change, more government spending resulting in possibly higher unemployment and higher taxes.
Kevin Rudd will become the new Prime Minister and he is one of the few or only western leader who can speak Chinese. I doubt it matters in the whole scheme of things. At that level you still need translators and interpreters, but at least he will probably place more emphasis on Asia related issues than his predecessor, John Howard. Possibly a shift from emphasis on the US and back to Asia. It is more of a political issue because trade is all about money and supply and demand. China needs all of the resources Australia can supply for all of the new construction going on. The previous government benefited from this regardless of the policies they had in place.
I don’t get the impression that Rudd is much of a technologist after hearing him talk about his internet policies. It is one area which I believe the government shouldn’t be involved in with regards to policing the internet. What they should be doing is trying to build faster, more accessible and cheaper networks to bring Australia up to speed with other countries.
